


fear, unknown, the letting go and catharsis

by Blepbean



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Death Before This Fic, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-07-28 00:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20054761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blepbean/pseuds/Blepbean
Summary: It’s the end of the revolution, they won, the Androids won.But Connor doesn’t have a home, nowhere left to go. Deviated, now he has to face these feeling and emotions which is more raw than ever before.Gavin slowly unveils the truth of himself, the feelings and emotions that’s buried underneath along with his regrets.Both of them takes a terrifying leap of fate, they’re forced to come undone and learn more about them selves than they hoped to.The story of fear, the story of the unknown, the story of letting go and the story of the painful cleansing of catharsis





	1. tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so like I know the start probs won’t make sense but TRUST MEEEE it will come together! Okay sweeties just trust me I’m lowkey proud and exited so ksjssks
> 
> Kudos, comments and feedback is appreciated.

It’s calm, quiet. A silent hush falls over Detroit. It’s a perfect early winter morning. The sun is filtering through the grey clouds, enough that it brightens the gloomy, snow-filled streets. It’s a perfect day, no one around, just him and the world. It’s quiet,  _ too quiet.  _ The hush of Detroit, the calm after the storm, too unsettling, makes him on edge. So he fidgets, as he sits on his chair, arms on table, foot-tapping gains the metal legs of the chair, one hand hiding his led while the other fidgets with a coin.

It’s the opposite of last night. Chaotic, loud, standing on the edge of failing. Now everyone can enjoy the quiet hush after the storm. They did it. They won. The revolution succeeded but at what cost?

Memories that plays over and over again.

His thoughts are loud.  _ Too loud.  _ Loud enough that it feels like it’s screaming at him. The Cyberlife tower,  _ Daniel,  _ tiny glimpses of what the other models before him saw, bloodshed,  _ murder.  _ The revolution cost them the terrifying nightmare of being in shackles from his past.

He plays scenarios over and over again. What he could have done. What he could have done differently. What would happen if he did this? Change the action, see the outcome, see the possibilities, like a timeline, taunting him with what he could have done  _ better.  _ He knew what he was getting himself into, the best outcome of this revolution is %0.000001. It’s taunting him, what if he could rewind, change the actions he made, change the outcomes.

But what’s done is done. He sits in the %0.00001.

He hears footsteps, getting louder and louder each time, he bites his lower lip.

“Checking out the vicinity, over,” he recognises that voice. Gavin, with his words full of venom. Pushes him away, talks to him like he's nothing. Anger, venom, just a man who hates Androids, nothing more, nothing less. 

“Yeah, yeah Tina I’ll check out the… I’m gonna have to get back on that. Over and out,” the radio crackled, then it goes silent. Connor ignores him. He stays still. He hopes he’ll leave him alone. He hears footsteps, but it’s different. It’s like standing in between of  _ should I walk forward?  _ and  _ I don’t want to go walk forwards. _

“Connor,” he says. No venom, no words cursing him out of existence. The way that Gavin says his name sounded soft, quiet, like a whisper. 

“What the hell are you doing in chicken feed? Aren’t you supposed to be following Hank Anderson or with your—“

“I’m waiting for Hank,” Connor says, “I don’t think he’s coming here,” Connor pauses, he places the coin on the table, staring at it, “I think he hates me.”

“No shit Sherlock, he hates  _ everyone _ ,” he hears Gavin shift behind him. Connor doesn’t want to look at him in the face. Stare at him. He doesn’t think he can look at anyone. He looks at his hands, thinking about what they’ve  _ done.  _ His led bleeds a deep red. 

Connor opens his mouth to speak, but closes it. What is Gavin to stay back at him? Gavin wouldn’t care,  _ never  _ would. He pushes down the question, burn it in the incinerator. Never think about it again. Never think about the strange between of wanting to become alive yet hating the thirium pump that beats in his core. Too many emotions, too many feelings. Is this what it truly feels to be alive?

“I have nowhere else to go,” Connor says. He finally gets the courage to turn around, meeting Gavin’s eyes. He looks at his face, the scar on his nose that no one really sees because no one looks hard enough, the dpd uniform on him, but worse of all.

The look on his face.

It’s different. No scowl. No frown, none. Just a normal expression on him, it’s strange to see him like that. Gavin crosses his arms while Connor tries to not fall apart.

”Connor?”

“Yes, Detective?”

Gavin sighs, shifts his weight from his other leg. He doesn’t look at him, only looking at his feet. “It’s uh… nothing, just something stupid. Don’t even pay attention to it.” 

So Gavin turns around and walks away, apart of him wishes he didn’t, he doesn’t know  _ why.  _ Connor can hear the radio crackle, then faint words. But Gavin stops, the world grows quiet, no wind, still, nothingness. It’s just him and Gavin right now in this very moment. It’s like the whole entire sea between them. Splitting them apart, thoughts and regrets tearing them apart even more. They’re the exact opposite of each other. Android and Android hater. 

Gavin and Connor.

The world around them bleeds back in. Gavin walks again, it looks like he was hesitating. He watches him walk further and further, until he turns the corner, leaving him and Detroit. Just the two of them. No sea, no stillness. Somehow, without Gavin’s awkward conversations, it’s lonelier. 

Gavin grits his teeth.

He  _ should  _ have told Connor he can come with him. He  _ should’ve.  _ It’s something out of character, almost impossible for a thing to come out of his mouth. Take home a homeless Android. It was a thought, but it spreads through him. He thinks about it over and over again, he’s kicking himself over and over again. Gavin wishes he never thought about it. A stupid thought. Push it deep down. Burn it into a fire where it belongs.

He and Androids don’t mix. It never does. It’s what he’s known for in the precinct. An asshole, arrogant mother fucker who just happens to hate Androids. 

He sighs and grabs his radio.

“Tina, Tina, I’m here, over,” he mumbles. He slows down his pace, “Tina, I’m here.”

Not a word, not a sound. Maybe she’s just busy,  _ maybe.  _ Or maybe she just hates him, silences stretches on between them when Tina hates him. It’s what she does. Grow silent and not say a single word to him. It makes Gavin come crawling back to her so he can apologize. 

He grips the radio tighter, “Tina I’m sorry.” he stops walking, leaning against the wall, “Tina please answer sorry that I blew you off and just went silent can you just respond please?”

He receives nothing but the deafening crackling of the radio. He pinches the bridge of his nose and tries again.

“Tina please don’t do this.”

The same crackling noise. He tries one more time, but Tina doesn’t answer. She hates him, he can already picture the silent weeks that will drag on slowly, filled with hesitant stares and words that almost comes out of his mouth.  _ Sorry,  _ a word that doesn’t come out of his mouth often. If it does, he means it. He doesn’t want to lose anyone, so many people left just because he didn’t speak.

  
“Tina… I’m sorry,” he murmurs before he turns off the radio and starts walking back to the precinct.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He sits through the tiring talk that Fowler did. He treads through it, nodding when he makes a point, making a mental note about the next area he’ll have to investigate. Everything else is white noise, drowning out the meaningless words that came out from him. Each time he tunes out he stares at Tina, hoping she’ll stare back, but she never does. Gavin knows that she can see him staring at him, but she ignores him.

It’s like a silent fight.

Everyone starts to walk away, quiet conversations floating through the precinct, some went back to their desk, while the others are nervous, fidgeting or on their phone. It’s a tense moment, humanity and Androids in the very edge. He walks around the precinct, looking for Tina. In the kitchen, in the table where they usually are, near the door or on her desk. She’s not there.

“Tina,” he says quietly. He finds her just outside the door on her phone. It’s just the two of them.

“Please don’t give me that,” he murmurs. 

“Someone reported shooting nearby your area,” she says, she looks at him, tense,  _ angry.  _ A different type of anger, not the one where she’s silent. It’s a wave of worried anger, one where she’s yell probably yell at him for being so stupid. He hasn’t had experienced worried anger, never has. Only anger, pure rage and fire.

She walks towards him, “you could have died.”

“But I didn’t.”

“I thought you died,” she scoffs, her hands turning into a fist. If she wants to punch him, go ahead, he probably deserves it. Instead, she pushes him, hard, hard enough that if he could have fallen to the ground filled with dirty sound.

“I almost had a fucking heart attack Gavin did you know that.”

“I know,” he says quietly, he’s not angry this time, Tina is, “I know.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

“I fucking hate you.”

“I know.”

  
  
  
  
  


Connor has no home, nowhere to go. So why is he standing in front of Hank’s house? His fingers are right on the doorknob, he’s hesitating, hesitating because the memories he had right here will play over and over again. He’s hesitating because he  _ feels  _ like he doesn’t belong here.

He opens the door.

The wind howls, the house is silent, everything feels  _ dead.  _ Each step he takes brings more and more weight into his shoulders. He walks into the living room, expecting to see Sumo patiently waiting for Hank, sitting right on the couch, waiting. But he’s not here. The sunlight outside creeps through the cracks of the curtains, it breathes a little bit of life into the living room.

He walks around the house. Into the kitchen, in the bathroom, into his bedroom. Everything feels  _ dead,  _ eerie, not a sound echoing throughout the house. The wind outside howls outside, the air feels still, not a sound, not a single sign of movement.

He doesn’t know where to go.

He doesn’t know where he belongs.

Thoughts and emotions wreak havoc as he keeps walking around the house, hoping for a change, a tiny movement or a sound. Maybe Sumo will show up, jump up on the couch, or maybe, Hank will show up, look at him and hug him tight, maybe.

But that’s  _ impossible.  _ Hank hates him, the shouting and the screaming. He remembers it all, he hates him. Now without him, he doesn’t know where to go. Jericho won’t take him in, they will throw him out, not  _ worthy enough  _ with the sins that he carries on his shoulders. The  _ Deviant Hunter,  _ the one that killed the all, slaughtered in cold blood and promised of a place they will never reach.

So, for now, he sits in the floor, thoughtlessly solving a Rubix cube. Waiting, waiting for a tiny percent that Hank will show up. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Gavin, Gavin come in.”

Gavin sits up, grabbing his radio, “yeah Chris what’s up.”

Chris grows silent for a second, Gavin stands up, looking around, “Chris?”

“Alert everyone and come into the Cyberlife tower, it’s  _ Hank _ .”

“Chris—“

The radio goes dead. Gavin stands up, looking around the room. A quiet hush fell over the room. It’s tense, silent. Fowler walks out of his room for  _ once.  _ They meet their eyes, it’s the first time that Fowler’s staring at because he isn’t angry.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Everyone is silent.

Tense, on the edge. Some are fidgeting, while others are murmuring beneath their breath. He could’ve stayed behind, he could’ve. Just go in his phone and maybe have the thoughts in the back of his mind eat away at him. He  _ could’ve _ .

But know he’s here, Tina right beside him. She’s nervous too, no one knows what lies in the Cyberlife Tower, scared, excepting the worse. He grits his teeth, reaching for his back pocket, the urge of having the smoke fill his lungs is slowly taking over him again.

So he sighs when he doesn’t feel the shape of his inner and his cigarette box. Tina looks at him, but she quickly looks ahead of her. Gavin grows more restless, fidgety. The hand on his gun grows tighter as they cross the bridge. 

Everyone is silent. When they meet Chris just outside the tower, when they go down the elevator, when they walk down a hallway. Everyone is tense, silent. Chris hasn’t told them yet, just a few words from him brought all of them here for just  _ Fucking Hank. _

_ “ _ I found him when I was looking around the tower,” Chris says. He opens the door. It’s bright, too bright. The walls are white, the silence is deafening, the atmosphere feels dense. No one dares to say a word. His thoughts grow louder, it’s like a pin drops to the floor.

There, just in the middle, Hank lays  _ dead. _

He’s  _ actually  _ dead. It feels like his body hasn’t caught up yet. Blood pools beneath him, he’s still. Gavin walks towards him, hoping that maybe, he’ll sit up, that maybe, he didn’t lose much blood, maybe, that he isn’t  _ dead. _

He puts his hands on his bleeding chest. No pulse. He puts his hand over his mouth. No breathing. None, not a single flicker of life. Gavin sighs, sitting down right on the floor, tuning out the words that Chris says.

“He’s dead,” Tina comes behind him. He brings his legs close to him, resting his arm on his knees. 

“I know,” he says. It echoes, it sounds strange to hear his own voice, but it sounds empty, “the old man is fucking dead.”

She sits besides him. The way she sits is all stiff and awkward. This is usual, neither of them knows how to comfort each other. It’s strange, how they care for each other like siblings, yet, they don’t know how to cry on a shoulder. They tread like theirs broken glass on the ground, in the darkness. 

So the two of them sit still, quiet. But the comforting presence of Tina is enough, even if it’s just a little bit, a little bit goes a long way. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Gavin?”

“Yes?”

He doesn’t know how much time has passed, everything feels like a blur, something  _ quick.  _ But know they’re on a car, rising back to the DPD. 

“It’s just that—“

“Hank  _ fucking _ Anderson is dead, I know,” it comes out harsher than he thought, he regrets it now. He grits his teeth and looks out of the window, staring past the buildings and signs he can’t read because they’re going too fast.

“He’s dead,” Gavin mumbles, more to himself, but Tina hears it away, “I don’t know what to feel.”

It’s a lie.

It’s actually a half lie, half truth. He doesn’t  _ know  _ what to feel, but he’s feeling  _ something.  _ It’s a feeling that twists your insides, shocking you with pain. Hanks dead, he’s dead, he saw him, on the floor, blood all around him,  _ dead _ .

He’s  _ dead.  _

“Gavin?”

He looks up at Tina, he already knows the  _ gaze  _ she has, “no I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” he says, “I’m just—“

“Having a shock?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you… drop me off at Hank’s house?”

She nods, without questioning him. It makes it easier. Gavin relaxes on his seat for just a little bit,  _ only  _ a little bit. Not enough that he can feel the heavy, suffocating weight on his chest. He looks outside, everything is cold, grey hues swirling together in the sky. Winter is something he likes, something he prefers over  _ anything.  _ Sweaters, being in bed, watching a movie as he drinks his coffee because he needs to stay  _ awake,  _ maybe he’ll swap it for hot chocolate for sometime. He likes the winter, cold, wrapped around in a blanket while he dreams for a cat, just right by his side.

But now it’s tainted. Tainted with blood, the vision of Hank lying dead in the  _ fucking  _ Cyberlife Tower of all places. Dead, dead meaning that’s he’s not breathing,  _ dead,  _ not living.

Not alive.

Everything grows a little more darker, draining the colours from it all. The winter feels like it’s slowly taking  _ everything  _ away. Growing colder, having more grey hues, more snow, more cold, more darkness.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He’s here.   
  
He’s hesitating, why should he? 

It’s been a while since he’s been here. Years and years that stretches on and on. He’s been here when he’s just running away to Detroit,  _ hoping  _ for something to change, flick a switch, reveal a good life to him in Detroit.

  
How fucking wrong he is.

He knocks, but then realises how stupid he is. He grits his teeth, turning the doorknob.

It’s open.

He swings the door wide open. Something doesn’t feel right. The air is still, quiet, like it should be. But it’s  _ too  _ silent, eerie. The air feels like it’s trying to whisper thoughts and memories back into his mind, he ignores it, it’s too  _ painful  _ right now. 

He gets out his hand, grip tight, air tense. He can hear his own breathing, his own heartbeat, loud, too loud. He moves through the living room, the change it noticable. It’s been a while he’s seen the living room, couches and sofas has all been changed, not the same, not like the old, uncomfortable couches you get for fifty bucks.

He’s trying to move quietly, but the creaking of the floor beneath him is loud, it’s deafening in the silence. One by one he moves to the rooms, tense, holding his breath before the moment he can see what’s in the rooms. Maybe it’s a memory, maybe it’s  _ nothing. _

Maybe he’s just freaking out, too tense,  _ paranoid  _ from the way that the whole house is eerie.

An instinct, something that comes along when you’re a police. A curse, a blessing. The worse of the two. Either accidentally shoot something when you wake up in the middle of the night, or nail the shot when the criminal tries to jump on you.

The grip on his gun grows tighter with each door.

His breaths get shorter.

His heartbeat gets faster.

He opens the door.

He sees someone, on the floor. Or maybe it’s his eyes? The figure stands up, weakly, he can see those  _ eyes.  _ Brown, warm, warm like autumn and soft like the teddy bear that he had when he’s just six, quickly needing to grow up, throw it away,  _ throw it away. _

_ NOW! _

But the brown eyes, it’s looking down, a little sad, teary.

Gavin steps inside, his anger starts to rise. It’s  _ him,  _ Connor with that  _ stupid  _ suit and  _ stupid  _ perfect face and his  _ stupid. _

Everything.

Anger spreads, vile,  _ vicious.  _ It infects everything inside his body and spreads quickly. He can’t stop it. It’s a disease that slowly grew when he kept growing up, bubbling away in his core, hidden away until he realises it’s too  _ late.  _ He can’t help it. He really can’t. No matter how hard he tries it always take’s over. Poor him? Isn’t it?   
  
Just poor Gavin.

With a fucking angry soul.

He grabs him by the collar, he’s  _ fuming.  _ He wants to break something, smash it into pieces until it’s no longer fixable. Blow everything apart. Break it. Break it all. It’s the curse of his anger. It’s  _ Connor’s  _ fault he’s angry, isn’t it? Angry, blame it on him, that he’s  _ dead,  _ the old man that he hates yet has a whole history that he can’t push back. Angry, because--

He’s an Android.

And he’s just an Android hater, isn’t he?

But when he looks into Connor’s eyes, face. It’s full of emotions, raw, ugly. He’s crying, all over. Tears that reflects the grey hues outside roll down his cheeks, then landing onto the carpet. Emotions written all over his face. Gavin doesn’t know what to do. 

He’s in shock, he doesn’t know what to do. He’s stuck, frozen in place. Not knowing what to do, he’s never seen Connor cry, full of emotion, tears,  _ ugly  _ tears, tears that he knows that Connor didn’t want to let out, tries to push it all back in, put it all into his pretty little core.

So Gavin lets go, feels the anger slowly melt away, the curse leaving his body, draining away from his veins. He watches Connor shake, hiding his face, on the ground, shaking and crying.

And all he can hear is.

“Sorry.”

Just apologies, one after another, thrown out quickly, from  _ sorry  _ to  _ sorry  _ to  _ sorry _ . Just filling the whole room, slowly filling the whole room with  _ sorries.  _ It’s like the only thing he can say,  _ sorry. _

_ Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry _

It drowns the whole room, Connor’s suffocating in it. It’s words that he forces out, only word that he says, only word that Gavin hears.

_ sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorryI’msosorryGavinhehatesmehehatesmehealwayshatedmehehatedmefromtheverybeginningwhenhetoldmeabouthisonhealwayshatedmesorrysorrysorry. _

_ Sorry. _

He doesn’t know what has gotten into him. Words coming out of Connor’s mouth quickly. He doesn’t know why, what he’s doing. But he’s sitting there on the floor, not knowing what to do, just in front of Connor as he listens to him say sorry over and over and over again in a room that’s probably Hank’s.

  
Hank’s room.

Filled to the brim with  _ sorries. _

Gavin doesn’t speak, only sitting there, still. Scared,  _ afraid. _

Because he knows how it feels.

  
  



	2. walls and silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They build up walls, let the defeaning silence seep in that speaks more than words, they build these walls because they are so scared of the unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really liking this fic so far and I have a couple of ideas on where to go. I want this to be reed800 centric but I also want to dove what happens after the revolution, this is where questions starts to rise, Angst becomes something more and just overrall character development
> 
> Period hun 💅💅
> 
> Kudos, comments and feedback is appreciated.

The ride is tense, quiet.

Gavin doesn’t know what to do. He keeps drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, the cool, rough texture of it giving some  _ sort  _ of distraction. Distraction from Connor. Distraction from the thoughts inside his head, loud, like a never-ending storm.

He looks at Connor through the rear view mirror. Watching him being so tense, hands clenched, on his legs, face not changing ever so slightly. It’s weird, it’s like a silent agreement they signed on. Don’t speak. Don’t mutter a word. Don’t let any more secrets fall out of their lips.

He wonders what Tina thinks all about this. Him, bringing an Android, Connor, home. An  _ Android.  _ She would laugh at him, maybe tell him he’s joking, that he’s out of his mind. He’s an Android hater, one that despises plastic humans, right?   
  


_ An Android Hater. _

_ And an Android. _

_ They don’t go together. _

He turns on the radio, wanting the endless words that comes out of it to fill the empty void between them, the silence, the ice between them, tense and cracking on the very edge, it sputters into a random news station, filling the silence so that he doesn't have to fill it with his empty ones. 

He grips the steering wheel tighter, looking ahead on to the dark road.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Connor doesn’t know how long he spent on the floor, crying.

Maybe it’s an hour? Or two? He doesn’t know. Time felt like it didn’t exist then. It’s just him, on the floor, not looking at his hands because he  _ knows _ it’ll look like it’ll be stained with a second later thirium. He remembers Gavin too, the rough hold on his collar, then feeling it melt away. Connor remembers him sitting down with him, just in front of him, not knowing what to do or what to say. 

He doesn’t blame him, the fact that he held anger, fire, burning away, wanting to throw him away, looking at him like he’s responsible for all this chaos, for all the walls crumbling down, leaving behind death and fear. He deserves it, right? For all the chaos that went down, all from just  _ him. _

He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Just silent words, phantom of the words that comes out of his mouth.

_ “Sorry.” _

Just one word, not like the waterfall of  _ sorries _ he spat out, filling and drowning the whole room, just a room full of breaking  _ sorries _ . But this one, the one that he  _ wants  _ to say, it’s different, something  _ more. _

But he couldn’t say it.

So now he sits in silence, the radio filling the silence between them so that it isn’t just deafening and scary. He looks outside the window, getting dark, slowly, the dark hues overtaking the grey, cold ones.

_ “Breaking news for the city of Detroit. It has been a day since the Android revolution, led by their leader, Markus. The public is rather supportive of the revolution, but now the tension is still high as people are still waiting on an update on the current situation from the— _

“Do you want the radio off?” 

It catches Connor off guard, breaking the silence between them, the radio doesn’t count anymore.

_ Yes,  _ because it reminds him of Jericho. Reminds him of the stares he gets, the piercing gaze from North, watching every move, seeing if he’s faking being a deviant. Everyone looking at him, the Deviant Hunter. It reminds him of that. He can’t go back there. He doesn’t  _ deserve  _ to go back there.

“No,” he mutters, slowly. 

He looks up to the rear view mirror, he sees Gavin, staring at him,  _ watching him.  _ They meet eyes for a second, a moment, something so quick but wants to stretch it out, turn it into minutes, maybe, or hours. But he can’t, they don’t go together.

An Android.

And an Android hater.

Connor tears his eyes off the mirror, words were said through the gaze. He bites his lips. He watches Gavin turn up the radio, turn up the volume, don’t let anyone speak,  _ let’s not have any moments like that again because it’s dangerous. _

_ “People are still wondering whether or not Androids are actually in fact, alive. Questions like that are stacking up throughout social media, but the overall public opinion says the exact opposite due to the Deviants…” _

  
  
  
  
  
  


He’s ahead of Connor when they climb the stairs. He always looks ahead, don’t look back, because if he does he’ll look at him again, meet his eyes and it’ll bring back emotions and memories he doesn’t want to resurface anymore. Bury it deep, pretend it doesn’t exist like the rest of his problems.

Both of them make their way inside his apartment when he opens it,they quickly get inside, like they want to spread out, get away from each other. He doesn’t blame him. Connor wanders off into the hallway, he sees him biting his lip.

He left it just the same as he did when he rushed out of his apartment in the morning. It’s messy, clothes on the couch, plates on the coffee table. It’s just your usual, bachelor apartment. But it’s also  _ empty, empty _ in away where there’s hardly anything hung up in the walls,  _ empty _ in the way where there’s no photos of his family because it simply he either lost it all or doesn’t want it up, leave behind the past, throw it away so it doesn’t resurface any time.

So now his apartment it is a hollow, dark and empty place. Nothing except the walls that hears his secrets last at night and cheap furniture that he bought off the streets. It’s just a place where he comes to every night, something void of spirit.

He sits down on the couch, looking down in the hallway. He hears nothing, silence, no sounds of water running (do Androids need to shower?) or anything. Just complete silence, eerie, unsettling.

Why is he even  _ caring  _ about such a little thing?

He grits his teeth, standing up, taking his cigarettes and lighter he forgot this morning.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
He’s hesitating, he doesn’t  _ want to _ , but he is. His hands are shaking against the cool feeling of the scissors that he grips to  _ tightly _ . It’s like a tug of war, a war between pushing the scissors deep into his temple, watch the led break and fall into the floor with as it clatters onto the ground. Or maybe drop the scissors into the ground, shake, then sit on the bathtub in this tiny bathroom that’s empty besides a toothbrush, soap and a couple of miscellaneous items in the shower and in the cupboard. The white, bland tiles of the bathroom will hear his thoughts, questioning why he even  _ thought  _ about doing it.

He looks at his reflection in the dirty mirror, he sees himself, the led standing out from the rest, reminding him that he’s an _ Android,  _ something that’s full of metal wires and plastic for his skin, something that isn’t  _ human,  _ something that is a  _ machine, _ something that isn’t supposed to be  _ alive  _ and isn’t supposed to feel  _ anything.  _

He stops looking at his led because he can’t look at it any longer. There’s tears falling down his cheeks that he didn’t realise. His main processor is heating up and it feels like he’s about to explode into tiny pieces of himself and all he wants to do is  _ scream. _ Scream into the void, pretend he doesn’t exist and just break apart because…

It’s all too much.

He drops the scissors into the ground, hearing it clatter as it breaks the silence. Now he’s standing, trying his best to stay still but he can’t. He’s shaking. Crying. Falling apart in the inside. Like the interior of a castle breaking, but never breaking outside. The feeling of the cold metal of the scissors is gone, and he wants it back but he’s such a coward because he couldn’t  _ do it. _

_ He couldn’t do it _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He hears the door behind him creak open.

Gavin turns around from the sofa, seeing Connor freeze as he stands there, shaking just a little bit. They look at each other for just a moment, it feels like an eternity, an eternity too long, maybe, if Gavin  _ dares  _ to look several layers deeper into Connor’s  _ stupid fucking  _ brown eyes, maybe, he can see the regrets and feelings and secrets that the Android hides.

But that will mean that Connor will know his too.

He quickly looks away, the thought burrowing deep into his skull and scaring him. He chews on his lower lip, looking down on the carpet.

“The apartment’s old,” Gavin says, “t-the u-uh doors.. are uh squeaky.”

_ Great fucking job Gavin _

He feels stupid, wanting to kick himself over as he turns back around, hand on his hair,  _ wanting  _ to pull it out for being so  _ fucking  _ stupid.

He’s surprised that Connor joined him, sitting on the other side of the couch, trying to make himself small. He looks like the exact opposite of himself a few moments ago. Now he looks like  _ Connor Connor,  _ perfect posture, perfect words and  _ perfect everything. _

He grits his teeth.

It feels like they made a wall, one that they can’t look over each other now. He doesn’t mind it, Gavin thinks. A wall, one side for each of them. One side for Gavin which is near the coffee table while the other is for Connor, near the remote. A wall, something they quickly established. Don’t look at each other, sit still in the deafening silence, worse than the car ride where the radio is separating them.

Now a pretend wall is separating them.

_ Because both of them are so afraid to take a step forward into the unknown.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Where would you like me to sleep Gavin?”

“Wherever the hell you want to, Connor.”

_ The name is weird on his tongue. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Saying his name without calling him a  _ plastic prick _ or something that is compared to pile of garbage is something new. Saying it all with  _ just  _ a sentence because he wanted to get it out as soon as possible. Quickly break down their  _ stupid fucking  _ walls, talk, then build them up again because the unknown is something they don’t tread on.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Saying his name without I having to do with fetching him a cup of coffee or something  _ bad.  _ Connor said it with just a single sentence, no more, no less. Just seven words, right on the point. Because he wanted to get onto the point and get it out as soon as possible, break down their walls, talk, then quickly build it up again. Because, the two of them are so  _ scared  _ of the battlefield called the unknown. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Gavin sits on the stairwells, it’s dark, empty, a little cold. The cold wall behind his back feels like tiny, sharp cold needles poking his back. It’s a good distraction for his emotions that’s slowly running wild, he bites his lips, thumb hovering over the green, call icon.

_ Just call her. _

_ But it’s so hard to do it. _

It’s not that hard, just a simple press of a button. That’s all he needs to do. But he’s  _ hesitating,  _ and he doesn’t know  _ why.  _ He grits his teeth, the curse spreading through his veins again. Anger, but it’s  _ different  _ this time. Anger towards himself, angry because he’s too  _ scared  _ and he’s hesitating over something like calling the only person that cares about him.

He’s hoping that maybe,  _ maybe  _ she’ll call so he doesn’t have to do it. Call because he doesn’t want to come off as clingy or he may be too much to handle. He’s holding the phone in front of him, watching, waiting,  _ wishing _ .

It rings.

“Hello?” He says, trying to sound normal, keep his voice normal, don’t let it waver because it’ll say  _ too much  _ all by just saying a single word.

“Hey,” she says. It feels nice to hear her speak, he slowly feels himself relax, feeling the curse slowly drain out of his veins. He props his elbow on his knee, looking around before he speaks.

“It’s pretty fucking weird how the streets are so quiet,” he says,” it’s  _ so  _ weird.”

“Yeah.”

A beat passes.

“Wh-what did you want to talk about? Or are you not going to tell me because you’re still pissed at me about that whole—“

“I have every right to be Gavin,” she says, “I just… why did you…”

“Turned off the radio?”

“Yeah.”

He chews on his lower lip, looking down on the ground. Silence grows, he doesn’t know whether it’s his company or something that’s unsettling him. He’s stuck on words, not knowing what to say. He wants to speak, say more,  _ hear her voice because everything is too much at the moment.  _

“I miss your cat.”

“ _ Gavin.” _

It’s like she’s saying to  _ stop ignoring me and just  _ ** _talk to me._ **

_ But it’s stuck there. _

“It’s Connor,” he mumbles, way too quiet, “that  _ stupid  _ Android, I just… I just saw him and I just wanted to  _ talk to him.” _

“Why?”

“I don’t  _ know  _ Tina and I don’t  _ know  _ what to feel and I—“

He stops himself from going any further.

Put a pause on the dam, close whatever details that’s left behind that he doesn’t want  _ anyone  _ hearing even though most are gone. He sighs, rubbing his temple. He’s so  _ tired. _

“Are you okay?” 

“I don’t know Tina.”

“Can you just… talk to me… Gavin…  _ please.” _

_ Please. _

It feels like his Mother talking to him again. Coming home from a bad day, cry on her chest, not face her because he’s a  _ coward,  _ always has been. He remembers her tilting his head up and making him look at her and she says..

_ ‘Talk to me Gavin.” _

Only this time he’s so close to breaking.

“I miss him,” he sobs, quietly into the phone. The kind of sobs where it’s quiet and broken and ugly. Quiet because he’s testing the waters, hasn’t let himself break down the walls and crumble into himself, don’t let anyone hear him break except for Tina, ugly, because there’s snot on his nose, and broken because he’s  _ trying  _ to hold it in. 

“Why do you miss him?” She whispers into the phone. He likes the sound of it, quiet, a whisper, sounding like a secret.

“Because he’s like a Dad I never fucking had.”

_ “Who the hell are you kid?” _

_ “Gavin… er… Gavin Reed, sir.” _

_ “What led you to becoming a police officer?” _

_ “Lots of things, sir.” _

He hiccups, wiping the tears with his other arm, snot on his arm, he thinks it’s disgusting on another time he  _ doesn’t  _ care right now. 

“Do you want me to stay?”

_ Yes,  _ because he needs some sort of infracture to lean on. Something to lean on while he breaks into smaller pieces, smaller and smaller until he can’t break himself apart anymore. He  _ needs  _ that kind of support.

Like her voice on the phone.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, “ _ please.” _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Connor keeps shifting on the couch, he doesn’t know how to sit. Whether to sit still, back straight and hands on his lap, or maybe relax, sit cross legged or sprawl out on the couch. He doesn’t know what to do. There’s too many options, it’s slowly overwhelming him all.

His eyes are still trained on the screen, flashings colours and hues all colouring his perfect face, the moderate sound of the TV quietly echoing throughout the apartment. He has the remote on his hand, constantly flicking through each channel. From a soap opera to a serious TV series to a random blockbuster movie from the early 2000’s. There’s too many choices, it’s too  _ hard _ to choose. Before it’s all linear, one choice, now there’s  _ too many. _

He doesn’t know what to feel.

He stays on once channel however, the news. His eyes are trained on the news reporters giving input into the current Android situation. 

_ “...right now however, I am standing--everyone is standing just outside the white house, hoping to get a statement or an answer from anyone working there, how they feel about the situation and whether or not Androids are a new form of intelligent life. We haven’t been given a statement from Madam President since the last time, wait, we are getting information that there has been a shooting in Detroit. Two--” _

The door rattles open. He quickly changes the channel, the harsh hues of red and blue colouring his skin turns into a soft, plain white from a cooking channel. He bites his lower lip, anxiety slowly seeping into his blood. He bounces his leg up and down.

“What are you watching?”   
  


Connor whips his head around, Gavin’s looking at him with a weary expression, tired, like his whole body seems to have given out, leaving nothing but an empty shell of his soul. 

“I said what are you watching?” Gavin repeats, “are you deaf or--”

“A cooking show,” Connor mumbles. Silence stretches between them, only the long words on how to make a blueberry tea cake filling the silence, like a flimsy, wooden bridge that’s going to break any second.

“A cooking show…” Gavin rubs his temples, sighing. He turns away but before he could leave Connor stands up and reaches for him. A last second thought, something that’s quick and rushed. Connor can feel it, the regret slowly seeping in.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, he feels like it isn’t enough. Two words,  _ nothing it ever enough to atone-- _

Gavin opens his mouth to speak. But stops, it feels like time froze, it’s just the two of them. Silence,  _ true silence _ , no radios or no TV’s in the background. Only them, the polar opposite, a negative charge and a positive charge.

_ An Android. _

_ And an Android hater. _

_ They don’t go together. _

“Get the fuck away from me dipshit,” Gavin mumbles. He tears his grip from Connor, turning around. Time floods back in and the silence is broken, can’t fix it anymore. Gone, like shards of a mirror.

So Connor stands there on all his own, confusion and and a weird sensation of melancholy in the air. He doesn’t know how to act or feel. Being alive is so confusing.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Gavin can’t sleep.

There’s the hum of the news in the background. He can’t sleep because of  _ fucking  _ Connor. He keeps shifting his position, he’s uncomfortable, maybe from the sound of the news in the background or the fact that  _ Connor  _ is in his  _ shiity  _ apartment.

Him and Androids don’t mix together 

He sighs, cursing under his breath. He looks up to the ceiling, the tiny popcorn ceiling staring right back at him. He can make out the bare furniture in his room, not entirely like blobs of shadows that sometimes looks like monsters from his nightmares when he’s eleven, but instead a hazy, dark outline with a tiny highlight of blue light that’s creeping underneath his door. He can see his dresser in the corner, chair stacked full of unwashed clothes, a desk with nothing on it except a laptop.

He sits up against the wall, pulling up the blankets to his chest. He props his arm on his elbows.

He’s can’t sleep.

_ “However…a theory that has been…that the now retired funder of...Elijah Kamski is behind these… _ ”

_ Elijah Kamski _

He wants to break something again, the curse flooding his veins once again. Just poor old Gavin who’s too violent, poor old Gavin as he watches  _ him  _ slowly drift away from his vision, leaving nothing but absolute  _ abyss. _

_ Dark. _

_ Nothingness _

_ Like his nightmares _

_ “Gavin did you know that there is blackholes in the night sky, it’s far away though so you can’t see it.” _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Connor can’t sleep.

He doesn’t need  _ sleep.  _ It’s more of a standby, an Android can go without for a week, only needing three hours, he can’t go without it for five months and only needs one hour of stand by. An hour of seeing  _ nothing _ , reograzning everything inside his mind and doubling checking data and resetting his core and processors for a short moment.

Now deviancy set it like a strange, cleansing disease. He’s getting weary, but he can’t  _ sleep.  _ An eternity of exhaustion can’t be slept away. So the next best thing is for him to sit on the floor, eyes trained on the news, watching,  _ wanting  _ to know every little thing that’s happening because his anxiety is feeding off the unknown.

_ “The theories surrounding Elijah Kamski, a retired funder of Cyberlife, that he has played some sort of part in this revolution, because of this we have  _

_ tried to contact Elijah Kamski, but he hasn’t responded back. But right now, however, the whole world is in absolutely in shock due to the Android Revolution, during it all, Madam President still hasn’t released a statement since the last time and people are out to discover for themselves. I’m Daniel Fisher, and this is Detroit News.” _

He lets the news go on in the background, it’s like a comforting hum to fade away the eerie silence that comes along the repeating memories. Connor lays on the couch, stiff, looking up into the ceiling. He’s still listening to the news, multitasking. Listening to the potential future of Android and Humans living tougher while he absentmindedly looking at the weird stain on the ceiling. It’s like he split his processors, allow him to have two trains of concentration at once.

He’s allowing one to sit in the plain of reality.

While the other is unknown, lost, in a plain of  _ non existence,  _ where nothing exist except the half of his processors, half his thoughts circle. While the other half of  _ everything  _ is gone, he’s now on the very edge of the falling down.

_ “Connor, Connor come in.” _

Simon ropes him back to reality. He feels his led circle with a cautious yellow. He stands up, biting his lower lip, extremities slowly flowing into his blood back in again. He’s  _ alive,  _ he can feel it. The anxious nerves, should he call? Let him hear what simon says and Simon equals.

Markus

_ It’s time to decide. _

_ Four words _

_ He doesn’t deserve to be a deviant. _

Jericho, a place that unfolds his many cores and faces. He’s hesitating, he walks around the living room, his hands itching for a coin to touch, feel the cold metal a giant his smooth skin.

Should he answer?

“Hello?”

He hears a heavy sigh at the other end of the line,  _ “thank rA9 for you picking up the call.”  _

Connor’s eyebrows furrows, Simon’s voice is breathy and panicky. 

“Simon what’s happening?” He says, his voice echoes in the lonely apartment, unloved for many years. His eyes drifts off to the door at the end of the hallway, underneath the door where he can see the reflection of a faint light and a phone.

_ “You need to come to Jericho.” _

_ Jericho. _

“Why?” Connor says, “ Simon w-what’s happening?”

_ “They’re coming,”  _ Simon says , he can hear voices in the background, Markus? “ _ You need to come here now! We need more people guarding Markus. Someone like you.” _

_ Him. _

_ Connor. _

_ An advance prototype made by Cyberlife. _

_ Connor. _

_ He’s not a machine he’s alive. _

His thoughts drifts away and seems to disappear into the unknown.

  
  



End file.
